The street stretches out, vehicles pass by on both sides, and figures can be seen running back and forth under the various billboards hung horizontally. Girls walk into a record store in groups, put on headphones, and stand in front of the window to listen to the new music; a long queue forms on the street side of the store next door, and young people in different costumes chat and laugh with their companions, waiting to go in and play marbles.
A small red car drove over here and stopped across the street. A man in a suit wearing a black leather glove on his left hand opened the car door and asked the woman in the passenger seat to get out. They walked to a cafe and sat down together. The woman named Keiko stirred with a silver spoon and looked tenderly at the man looking out the window across from her.
"Xia Sang, Xiaoyu didn't come with you?"
"She's on the same flight as me. She's still busy at the airport. We'll go back together in two days." The man looked at the street view outside the window, smiled, turned around, saw the expectant look in the woman's eyes, picked up the cup and took a sip of the slightly bitter coffee, "I came here this time for something. A lot of 'weird' corpses were found at sea. I found out that some organizations were killing marine creatures. I'm familiar with this place, so I came to take a look."
"What kind of thing?"
"It's related to the Sanhua Society. You know the third sister of the Sanhua Society, Sanhua Hemei, was kept by me. According to her, the eldest and second sisters in the family are quite capable, but at most they are involved in whaling and smuggling. It's impossible for them to know about the legendary creatures in the sea."
The man leaned closer and whispered, "Mermaid." At the word, the woman named Huizi dropped the silver spoon and covered her red lips with horror in her eyes. The story of mermaids has existed since ancient times and was also a fairy tale from childhood. It was normal for her to find it difficult to accept it for a while.
"Xia Sang, is this true?" She repeated the question as if to confirm.
"It can't be fake... I saw a mermaid being hunted with my own eyes, so I came here. When I came to find you, I also found the leader of the Sanhua Society and interrogated him. The 'things' were all bought by the person behind the scenes. I heard that he also bought the largest Sumina Zaibatsu in Tokyo at that time."
"Well... I seem to have heard similar news. It seems that the Yamada Group is the main investor in the acquisition."
“Do you know their structure?”
Huizi stirred the spoon to create ripples in the cup, frowned and thought for a while.
"Fujisan Bank, Yamada Biotech, Yamada Metals, Asahi Heavy Industries, etc."
"Yamada Biotech."
The man named Xia Yi leaned back in his chair and tapped his leather-gloved left hand thoughtfully, his fingertips tapping rhythmically. "The Shouming Zaibatsu is also mainly engaged in biological research. It seems that they want to restart the other party's 'Million God Project'."
The leather gloves were clenched into fists, and a series of bone-crackling sounds were heard. Xia Yi looked out the window, raised his sight, and vaguely saw the towering buildings in the distance. A sneer appeared on the corner of his mouth, "I haven't exercised for two or three years. It's a good time to loosen up my muscles."
The spoon stopped, and Huizi, who had misunderstood, blushed and drooped her face, saying in a mosquito-like voice: "It's still early... If you don't mind, I'll go back and clean the room."
"Hey... Even though we are an old married couple... don't get me wrong."
Xia Yi rubbed his eyebrows, and the woman who suddenly understood did not bury her head shyly. Instead, she stared at him straight in the eyes and licked her red lips.
"I didn't misunderstand... That's what I meant. You always have to feed... him." The woman's delicate hand reached out to the cup, painted red nails, and gently drew circles on the back of the man's hand. She opened her red lips slightly, pulling up the water thread, and spoke in a long voice: "Xia Sang, is that right?"
"Sure enough, thirty is like a wolf."
The two of them sat at the small table and laughed for a while about stretching their muscles. After paying the bill, a black shadow flew down from the sky. There were many crows on the island, so it was not uncommon to see one. Suddenly, one flew over and landed in Xia Yi's hand, which still attracted a lot of attention from the street.
The bird's body was a circle larger than that of an ordinary crow, and its eyes had a circle of red. It spread its wings and jumped with a pair of claws. It jumped along the palm of Xia Yi's hand and landed on Xia Yi's shoulder. It whispered something in his ear like a human, then called out twice and flapped its wings to fly into the sky.
"Xia Sang, what happened?" Huizi held the man's arm and looked up. Xia Yi squinted his eyes and looked into the distance. He turned around and patted the back of her hand. "It's okay. I'll take you home."
After sending the woman to the car, the car drove away onto the street. In the distance, parallel to the direction of speed, there was a tall building near Akihabara. Office workers were busy coming in and out. The top floor of the building was covered with red carpets. There were floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides, reflecting the two rows of cardboard lanterns in the middle. The warm yellow light illuminated the desk in front. An old man was sitting in a wheelchair, looking at the bustling street outside. He threw a stack of documents in his hand into a shredder and ground them into powder.
"The Shouna Zaibatsu's 'God Project' is just that... Relying on the power of redstone, they can reproduce the bodies of gods, which are only slightly stronger than ordinary people."
The old man spoke in the Japanese language. His voice was hoarse but full of dignity that was difficult for others to refute. He turned his wheelchair sideways, pressed the button and drove out of the desk. His cloudy eyes swept over his subordinates who were standing in a row behind two rows of lamps.
"Have the people hired by Shengqi arrived?"
"We're here. Following the president's instructions, we've gone to Nasuno. However..." Someone hesitated for a moment and raised his head: "President, is that really a nine-tailed fox?"
The old man looked at the other person with no expression on his face. The wheelchair under him turned, rolled over the red carpet, came to the bookshelf, picked up a book from it, and flipped through it in his hands, as if he was explaining, or as if he was talking to himself.
"Legends are not necessarily false. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have spent my whole life doing such things."
As the old man's voice was hoarse, he opened the book with both hands. A photo slipped out of the book and fell into his palm. On it was a hand-painted painting. The view was looking out from the cockpit. On the wing, there was an ancient young man in fluttering robes. Next to him stood an old donkey with its mouth and nose tilted, sticking out its tongue at him.
He couldn't help but run his fingertips over it and grinned.
This is exactly what he saw by accident when he participated in the Kamikaze Operation. It was also because of that incident that his legs were seriously injured in the plane crash, but he was not angry. As long as there are gods in the world, these legs don't matter.
"I will offer the flesh and blood of all living creatures in the world to Yaki, and perhaps I can become a god..."
He has found the place where the Yamata no Orochi in the legend was sealed, he has also found the nine-tailed fox, and he has also hunted many mermaids in the sea. As long as he can catch the nine-tailed fox, even if it is just a corpse, that will be the last step.
“President!!”
The old man was stroking the photo and thinking. Someone came out of the elevator and walked over quickly. He handed over a letter with both hands, "President, something happened. This is the news from the Sanhua Association. I dare not use electronic equipment for fear of being eavesdropped."
Yamada Jiu stopped his fingers, took the letter, unfolded it in his hands, scanned the lines of handwriting on it, and put it aside without saying a word.
"Sanhana Saki will handle it. If she can't even solve this matter, there is no place for her on the throne of God. Just like that, the original words are returned."
However, as soon as that person left, more news came.
"President, our people in China were eliminated and used by others to attract the attention of Z9 with false news, and all we got was a useless photo."
The photo handed over was actually a portrait taken from a cave mural, which made everyone in the consortium in the office go crazy. Several undercover agents were sacrificed for a useless photo, which was a huge loss. After all, it took several years or even more than ten years for an undercover agent to integrate into the local area before he could be trained.
The old man looked at the photo in front of him and almost stood up from his wheelchair in excitement. He snatched the photo in his hand and stroked the familiar face on it with trembling fingers.
“…It’s him…It’s him…”
The noisy voices were still ringing indignantly over there. The morning light poured through the window lattice and shone on the photo in the old man's hand. It was the portrait of Lu Liangsheng. At this time, the scholar who was being thought of was dressed in a robe and leading an old donkey on the way to the place agreed upon by Sanhua Saki on the phone, which was only a few miles away from Tokyo.